High power pulses are used in a wide variety of applications. By way of example, high power electrical pulses are utilized for powering microwave amplifier tubes used in driving electron accelerator systems and/or microwave generating systems for medical radiation-production applications and radar. Of course, several other applications also exist. The quality requirements on the generated pulses are generally high. Pulse energy, pulse width, rise time, fall time and pulse flatness are some of the quality parameters usually under consideration.
Systems or circuits employed for generating these high power pulses are commonly referred to as power modulators or pulse modulators. Most power modulators use pulse transformers to obtain the required pulse energy. However, conventional pulse modulators generally require a huge amount of subsystems and pulse-forming networks (PFN's) to drive the pulse transformer. Consequently, then physical size of these prior art power modulator systems is very large. In addition, the pulse-forming network (PFN) of an old-type power modulator normally operates at high voltage, driven by high voltage capacitors. High voltage always involves great danger. Furthermore, the expected lifetime of conventional power modulator systems using pulse forming networks is generally low.